Maine’s Comparative Negligence Rule

Maine’s comparative negligence rule is a complicated legal concept in personal injury law. It dictates the amount of fault allocated to a plaintiff and the defendant in a case of injury. In order to understand how the comparative negligence rule works, one must first understand negligence law as a whole.

At its most basic, negligence law says that when one person harms another due to carelessness or recklessness, they are liable to compensate the victim for any losses or damages they suffered. The defendant’s negligence must have been significant, and the victim must have suffered injuries that could reasonably be attributed to the defendant’s conduct. To recover damages, the victim must typically prove that they sustained a considerable amount of harm, and that the other person’s negligent behaviors were a substantial, or proximate, factor leading to the injuries.

In the state of Maine, the comparative negligence rule applies to all negligence claims. This means that the court, jury, or other tribunals will take into consideration the carelessness or intentional behavior of both parties in determining the amount of liability each bears for their respective damages. The fault attributed to each depends on the relative degree or amount of care or lack thereof that each party exhibited. The ultimate goal of the rule is to fairly assess the fault and liability of each party and to impose an equitable remedy for damages.

The comparative negligence rule dictates that if the injured party’s carelessness, or contributory negligence, is found to have exceeded that of the other party’s, they will be barred from receiving any damages. Additionally, if their degree of negligence is found to have gone beyond 50% of that of the other party, they will be completely barred from recovering damages. If the negligence is found to be lower than 50%, however, the damages will be reduced in proportion with the degree of fault attributed to the plaintiff.

For instance, if the injured party’s fault is determined to be 20% of the total fault in a case, they will be allowed to recover 80% of the damages that would have been available had their contribution been equal to that of the other party. This result applies only if the defendant’s degree of fault is greater than 50%. If both parties’ degree of fault is above 50%, neither will be entitled to a remedy for their damages.

Maine’s comparative negligence rule stands in contrast to other states’ laws that employ different rules or variants of the pure comparative negligence rule. For example, some states use a modified comparative fault system, in which the plaintiff’s negligence cannot exceed the defendant’s in order to recover damages and must be lower than a certain percentage (usually 50%). Other states require a plaintiff to prove that their negligence was less than the defendant’s in order to recover damages.

The comparative negligence rule as applied in Maine provides an efficient way of determining the relative fault of both parties in a negligence claim and subsequently apportioning the liability and damages owed. It also helps to protect the negligent plaintiff by reducing their damages in proportion to their fault. As such, it is an important concept in personal injury law and should be kept in mind by anyone seeking to make a negligence claim in Maine.